Chapter 24

The next day, Qin Weihang was absent from jurisprudence class again. An Ning was also a little worried about it. He had been absent from Teacher Wang Qiulin’s class twice now. Last time, Teacher Wang Qiulin didn’t point it out, but it would be a bit difficult to not say anything this time. Sure enough, Wang Qiulin asked in class: “What’s wrong with Qin Weihang?”

The class was silent. An Ning had no choice but to say: “Oh, he’s sick.”

He bit the bullet and said it with a bit of confidence. Fortunately, Teacher Wang Qiulin nodded and did not ask again.

An Ning lowered his head and secretly sent a WeChat message to Qin Weihang: Why didn’t you come?

Qin Weihang did not reply to him.

An Ning took notes very seriously in that class, and even highlighted the key points in detail. He took notes quickly, so the words were written poorly. When writing quickly, the words were like scribbles, so he had to copy it again when he went back, otherwise no one would understand it.

After having dinner with Liang Shenghan in the cafeteria at noon, An Ning went to the dry cleaners to retrieve the laundry that was sent yesterday. The heavy rain yesterday made the weather increasingly refreshing. He slowly walked back to school carrying the clothes. When passing the school road, he saw that both sides have set up a lot of new booths for clubs. He heard that today and tomorrow were A University’s Club Day.

There was a rare excitement on the school road, so An Ning slowed down and watched while walking. There were various club activities; some clubs held banners and some held poster stands. The most popular one was the photography club. He looked towards the crowd, and after looking around, he spotted Huang Qinzhen. He thought with a smile, sure enough, this was why.

The richly colorful university students spread out like a picture scroll. Unfortunately, he won’t have a chance to experience it. His daily schedule was full, so he really couldn’t find time to develop these kinds of personal hobbies. He can only gaze at it like this and feel the atmosphere.

When the event was about to end, An Ning couldn’t help but pause his steps. There was a poster stand on the side of the ginkgo tree’s flower bed. He pushed his glasses in disbelief. There was a blond, blue-eyed, and bare torso deep-water rock climber printed on it. Standing on the school road sprinkled with golden ginkgo leaves, An Ning seemed to have traveled back to the day when he first saw Qin Weihang deep-water rock climbing.

The words ‘A University’s Rock Climbing Club’ was printed on the bottom of the poster. So does A University actually have a rock climbing club?

A voice drew his attention back: “Classmate, are you interested in rock climbing?”

An Ning turned around after hearing the sound, unsure if the other party was asking him, after all, he didn’t look like someone who did outdoor extreme sports. Nonetheless, he still came forward and asked the president: “Excuse me, is it rock climbing or mountaineering?”

The president replied: “It’s mainly rock climbing. Occasionally, we also organize some mountaineering activities. When rock climbing, zip-lining, and so on, we often need to climb mountains.”

A girl was already writing the registration form, she finished filling it out and got up to scan the WeChat QR code given by a member. But compared to the excitement of the photography club, where Huang Qinzhen was located, this was really a good place. An Ning glanced back at the deep-water rock climbing poster again. He was a little excited: “Then…do you need to pay a membership fee?”

“No membership fee is required, but if we go out for activities, we need to share the expenses.” The president said.

No membership fee, how nice! An Ning became more and more excited, but forgot that climbing equipment also cost money: “I have no rock climbing foundation at all, can I still join?”

“Of course,” the president nodded. “Our club has many new people every year. Who hasn’t started out as a novice?”

An Ning still wanted to continue asking, but then the girl who had just signed up asked: “By the way, is Qin Weihang in this rock climbing club?”

The president and the member next to them was taken aback by the question. They smiled apologetically: “He isn’t. He is a great god, we are just hobbyists. I’m still looking forward to him joining!”

The girl curled her lips slightly, a bit disappointed.

Less than a minute after the girl left, Qin Weihang appeared on this school road that was full of ginkgo trees. He returned to school that day to hand in the homework for constitution class. Teacher Huang of the constitution class had bad eyesight, so they have to print out the homework themselves and then put it in his personal mailbox. The deadline was Monday.

The homework assigned last time in constitution class, Qin Weihang had sent it to An Ning in WeChat. An Ning printed it and dropped it in the mailbox. He originally didn’t want to trouble others. After all, his paper was not written very well, so he didn’t want to let the top student read it. However, he actually really didn’t want to come to school specifically to hand in an assignment. After weighing the two options, he finally sent it to An Ning. He had hoped An Ning would only print it and not take a closer look at the content.

But then An Ning replied to him and asked: Did you just write one page? Teacher Huang said 2,000 words, one page is not enough.

At the time, he didn’t know how to respond and felt embarrassed for a moment. What was he doing in class, he actually didn’t even hear the 2000-word requirement. In the end, he wanted to say, “Just print it like this, don’t worry about it.”

In any case, he didn’t care about his grades. Even if he fails the course, it won’t matter to him at all.

But somehow, he forgot to reply. In the evening An Ning sent a WeChat voice message, saying: “Let me add some more for you so that it’ll be 2000 words, okay?”

He didn’t think it was okay at all, not even one bit. This was because he really didn’t care what a law department teacher would think of him and what his score would be. Maybe it was only to reply to this ‘okay’, just that one word— and it has nothing to do with the first half of the message—that he raised his phone without much thought and replied: “Okay.”

In fact, he regretted it after replying. If he was going to help him make up for the word count, An Ning was bound to see the nonsensical things he wrote.

He completed a set of arm strength training on the fingerboard, and slowly accepted this reality in the sound of heavy breathing.

Later, he smoothly passed his homework. He received a grade he usually got, it seems he still got a B+. He didn’t say “Thank you” to An Ning, because he didn’t want to face that crappy homework again.

This kind of thing seems to have happened before… It really happened before. When he just came to A City, Yu Ran came to visit him at the place he rented. He was doing arm strength training in front of the balcony door, and Yu Ran cleaned up the living room sofa for him on his own initiative. There were some small things piled on his sofa. After all, he was the only one who lived here, so it didn’t matter if it was stuffed, but Yu Ran thought that it was a merit to clean up the sofa. He looked at him with an expression of wanting a praise. At that time, it seemed that he had told Yu Ran not to be nosy in the future.

Because this kind of unsought help was a real pain in the ass. Yu Ran scolded him for being ungrateful. He helped him, yet he wouldn’t say a word of gratitude. But he didn’t even need his help, so why should he thank him?

But An Ning’s situation was different. Naturally, it was different. An Ning asked him if he was okay with it, and he said “Okay” himself.

So this situation needs to be seen as different from Yu Ran’s self-righteous situation.

It was a pity that this time he didn’t plan to let An Ning help anymore.

When he went to the mailbox in the office corridor to hand in his homework, the mailbox was full. There were two papers that were almost sticking out of the mailbox. It would not be easy for him to insert them in again, so he patiently took out the two assignments, but was a little surprised to find that the one on top was An Ning’s paper. It was the same as usual; the assignment could be done casually, yet it was still written very seriously. He, however, didn’t expect the homework to be turned in on the deadline. Qin Weihang had no doubt that he was the last to hand in the homework, so in this order, An Ning was second to last.

The third-to-last paper was folded before it was stuffed in, so An Ning’s paper had to be a bit reluctantly stuffed in too. Qin Weihang unfolded the third-to-last paper and stuffed it in again. After trying a few times, it was finally in.

Finally, he stacked his own paper with An Ning’s paper, and stuffed them in what little space the mailbox had.

He kept trying but couldn’t get it in.

The edges of the A4 papers were almost torn.

He had to take it out again and fold the work of two people in half. After folding it in half, it would be thicker, so he pressed his fingers along the fold line; rubbing the smooth printing paper with his index finger and thumb. He pressed them until it looked like they were stapled together, then it was placed into the mailbox again.

Finally, it went in this time.

Qin Weihang really didn’t expect that he could hand in an assignment for five minutes, and he even had to use a bit of effort. He also didn’t expect that he would see An Ning in front of the booths for club activities when he came out of the building. Qin Weihang used to think that this kid was very busy every day; either busy studying or making money. He would be so busy that he needed to squeeze out time to hang out, but now it seems that he may not be so busy.

Qin Weihang stood in the distance and watched for a while, then he walked over. An Ning just finished the consultation and restrained himself from signing up, saying “Then I’ll think about it.” When he turned around, he saw Qin Weihang striding over.

Several members of the rock climbing club stood up with a bit of excitement on their expressions.

As soon as An Ning turned around, he saw Qin Weihang.

He was shocked and also a bit surprised: “Why did you come to school?”

Qin Weihang looked at the paper bag in his hand and didn’t speak. The so-called love between an older woman and younger man, he didn’t believe it one bit. Only one year after his own mom passed away, his dad married a woman who was 15 years younger than him. At that time, the two of them knew each other for less than three months. Could this also be called brother-sister love?

An Ning didn’t pay attention to his expression, and just said what was on his mind. He was thinking that he was just discussing with the rock climbing club and now Qin Weihang coincidentally appeared. Such fate made him even more unable to resist the urge to join the rock climbing club. Since he just met Qin Weihang by chance, he also wanted to ask for Qin Weihang’s opinion. An Ning couldn’t help but say: “…but I don’t know if I am suitable or not…” After all, Xiao Pang’s pull-ups were the best out of the three of them, yet Qin Weihang said that he was not suitable for rock climbing.

Qin Weihang wasn’t listening to what he was saying. He looked down at the paper bag in An Ning’s hand and said: “This outfit is pretty expensive.”

An Ning was taken aback, lifted the paper bag, and said: “Oh, this outfit isn’t mine. I have to return it after dry cleaning it.”

“Will the phone also be returned?” Qin Weihang said. He was frowning indifferently, and his tone was also very cold, “Since you don’t lack things to wear or things to use, there’s no need for you to squeeze your way into getting financial aid.”

No matter how slow An Ning was, he was able to hear the disdain in Qin Weihang’s tone and was stunned. Qin Weihang glanced at him, passed by him, and left.